The QS Global Academic Survey now stands as the largest survey of its type yet on the opinions of academics globally with a response of over 75,000 for the 2018 edition of the rankings. This phenomenal result is, in part, due to QS’ investment in survey software, survey design, effectiveness of communication and database management, but also reflects the strong awareness and interest right around the world in the QS World University Rankings® and university evaluations generally.

To boost the size and stability of the sample, QS combines responses from the last five years, where any respondent has responded more than once in the five year period, previous responses are discarded in favour of the latest numbers.